End of month view: October 2014

As I mentioned in my post Gardening with ME: weather and energy the other day, I don't have a lot to report. After travelling in September I have spent most of October with little energy to really be able to get up to much in the garden. So this will be a shorter EOMV post than usual.

In the kitchen garden, the green manure Phacelia tanacetifolia, sown after the potatoes were dug up, have grown with gusto. This was only a short-term sowing and I'll be uprooting these to make way for planting the garlic that will be going in here in November.

Once I've pulled up the climbing bean canes, I'll throw the Phacelia tanacetifolia plants onto this part of the veg bed, along with the dying bean plants, before adding leafmold, in order to help improve the structure of the soil. I'll be then sowing over-winter broad beans in part of the bed, and will add manure to the other part to help bulk it up and add more nutrition for the planned potatoes that will be growing in there next year.

As mentioned last month, I did manage to collect some of the Dwarf French Bean Ice Crystal Wax seeds for saving and these are now drying out. I don't think the lettuce 'Bronze Arrow' is going to flower and set seed in time, so I'm hoping I'll be able to get more seed from the Heritage Seed Library and try again next year. We are still eating quite a bit from the garden: fennel (incredibly delicious) & kohl rabi, carrots, kale, spinach and chard, the last few beetroots and I have some cauliflowers that I'll be picking in the next week or so.

The shadier end of the Shady Border

Elsewhere in the garden, autumn is showing, though I feel I maybe need to add more to bring interest to the garden at this time of year. The yellowing leaves are from my Morello Cherry tree, and the red is Acer palmatum 'Bloodgood'. It's kind of hard given the size of the garden and how much of it is given over to vegetables (which I don't regret, btw!), but I'm sure I could add something to the shady border to give it more height and colour in autumn, particularly as it will take several years for the cherry and acer to really grow and fill out the space. Something to think about.

Damp and moss growing

I have discovered a problem in the Shady Border, shadier end, with quite a lot of moss starting to grow here. A combination of the recent wet weather and the fact that from mid-September onwards this area doesn't get any direct sun, I believe has led to this. As the plants grow more and fill out the border this won't be so obvious, but I'm not sure if I should try and get rid of the moss and add something, such as woodchips, in the meantime? Or would woodchips only make it damper and more likely to let moss develop? Or should I not worry about the moss? I'd appreciate any suggestions you have please!

One surprise has been my sweet peas, which suddenly have taken off again. In fact the plants look healthier now than they did in summer. I'm making the most of them whilst they last.

I haven't got any bulbs planted as hoped at the end of last month, so with luck I'll be feeling a bit better in November and will get these planted. October was quiet in the garden, and whilst I couldn't be out there much, I have enjoyed viewing the garden from the study. When you cannot garden physically, you can still garden in your head.

Overview from study

* * * * *
End of month view is hosted by Helen Johnstone, aka @patientgardener. Visit Helen's blog for her October 2014 EOMV and links to other bloggers EOMV posts.

More harvesting, and green manure

I must say thank you to the weather, for hearing my plea and making the weekend predominantly sunny, or at least,  not very rainy, as it did rain for 1 hour on Sat. My lottie was ever so pleased to see me today.

Thankfully I got there just in time before some of the courgettes started becoming marrows. This particular courgette, verde di Italia, has yielded quite well, though I do have to be quick about getting to them before they become marrows. They taste much better when smaller. As usual, another good variety I got from Real Seeds.

Courgette verde di Italia

I only had to dig up a couple of beetroot to get enough to make some brownies...

One of them was quite large compared to the others (see right side in the picture below). This was a variety called Devoy, which rather than giving you round beetroot, gives you longer more carrot-like beetroot. This one was quiet chunky. Mmmm, brownies....

The St Valery carrots were also doing well and taste really sweet, like sunshine in your mouth.

The green manure I sowed a couple of weeks ago is coming along wonderfully. First is the Tares, (with the errant pumpkin elbowing in for some space) which over-winter without any problems from frost damage. I planted the tares after pulling up the garlic. Tares are from the legume family, and fixes nitrogen into the soil as well as improving soil fertility.

The following bed is a mix of winter salads and pak choi to the left, and Hungarian Grazing Rye to the right.

I will be putting a cloche over the salads and pak choi, so carefully marked out the space it will need for when I have to put it on. This will be just before the first frosts, probably in October. Well, hopefully in October and not late September when I'm on holiday in Bavaria!

Because the rye is a cereal it can fit anywhere in a rotation. I thought I'd try it because it is supposed to stop nutrients from leaching, for example, from heavy rains or flooding. Apparently it can really take off and put in deep roots in Spring, so I need to remember to dig it in, in early Spring. Ok braincell, remember that...

You dig in green manure in Spring, at least 4-6 weeks before you want to sow seeds. The freshly dug in green manure can inhibit germination, which is why you need to wait a few weeks to let them break down and release their manurey-goodness before spring sowing can commence. My plan in general, is to have some kind of green manure growing through winter in any bed that I don't have veg over-wintering, such as my Brassicas, Spinach/Chard and the winter lettuces.

Whilst I was busy harvesting, weeding, and sowing more Spinach, Chard and an overwintering cabbage, Wintergreen, Kevin was working on digging out weeds and preparing another raised bed.

Our great aim(!) is that for a change, next year all the beds for the potatoes will be ready when it is potato planting time (traditionally Good Friday), rather than the desperate rush in mid-late May as has been the case in the last two years! Oddly, the late sowing of the potatoes doesn't seem to effect the yields, but still, it would be nice to not have rush in May for a change.

My final photograph is of a poppy that has self-seeded in my spinach/chard bed. Seems a bit late for a poppy to be flowering, but hey, not complaining. I mean - pretty! Ok, perhaps it is flamboyant, but still, pretty...

Early spring at the lottie

With my back much improved and the sun shining, Kevin and I got down to the lottie on Sunday. It was well and truly time to get the green manure beds dug over, which is what Kevin is doing here.

This is Vicia sativa (winter tares) which I sowed late last September. It's hardy, it survived a couple of feet and several weeks of snow, and it's a nitrogen fixer. Digging it in, I'll leave it for a few weeks to rot down and release the nitrogen, and will then be planting my brassica's in this bed. Brassicas are nitrogen hungry, so hopefully this will help them grow big and strong.

Whilst Kevin was digging in the green manure, I was trying to rescue my strawberries from encroaching couch grass. I also grow narcissi with my strawberries, so I have some early spring colour to lift the spirits and make me feel the growing season is really starting.

The garlic is coming along nicely, as you can see here. Over winter, I have been trying out the many different varieties I harvested last year. Some, such as Irkutsk, are way way WAY too strong even for me, and I love garlic (no, really?). We used a quarter of a clove in an omlette and it was not only overpowering, we had garlic breath for days! Most aren't that strong and it's been fun trying them out in key dishes (ie. pasta sauces) to see what difference each makes. I'll update the garlic varieties record sheet in the next month or so, which will include how they are storing.

The lottie next to us has an unintentional pond. An 'unintentional pond' is a hole that started as a, well, hole, and then started collecting water and then frogs started spawning and so then Tess, the lottie holder, decided to more intentionally turn it into a pond. The black clump to the top middle-right is this years frog spawn. We do get lots of frogs around our beds, which is great as they eat the slugs. However it can be a little nerve-wracking at times, nearly putting a fork into a froggie! I try and return them to the pond, however they don't seem to get the message and it's an ongoing saga. In summer the pond can dry out a bit, so we help out adding water to keep the frogs from being parched.

By the end of a couple of hours work, the green manure was dug in, I rescued most of the strawberries from couch grass, gave the asparagus bed a bit of a mulch (furthermost right), and got up my new polytunnel. At the moment this is over the broad beans to help them along a little, but mainly it's going to be for the brassicas. It will protect them from blasted pigeons and the dreaded white cabbage moth. Learning from previous experience, I'm going to mollycoddle my brassicas and keep them protected all year round. It will be me eating cauliflowers, cabbage, kale, brussel sprouts and broccoli and not the naughty beasts!